Descanse en paz el periodista y poeta Yiddish Moshe Shklar Z”L

MOSHE SHKLAR –  משה שקלאַר ע”ה
1920 (Warsaw)  – August 11, 2014 (Los Angeles)

דער קאַליפֿאָרניער אינסטיטוט פֿאַר ייִדישער שפּראַך און קולטור און ייִדיש־ליבהאָבערס איבער דער גאַנצער װעלט באַקלאָגן די פּטירה פֿונעם באַליבטן און באַװוּסטן ייִדישן דיכטער משה שקלאַר

The California Institute for Yiddish Culture and Language and the Yiddish-appreciating community world-wide mourn the passing this week of the beloved and renowned Yiddish poet, Moshe Shklar.

The funeral will take place in Los Angeles on August 14, 2014 at 11 AM at Home of Peace Cemetery 4334 Whittier Blvd., Los Angeles.

Moshe Shklar (c. 1921-), 87 in 2008, born in inter-war Poland, resident of Warsaw and longtime editor of the Yiddish newspaper Folks-Shtime: “published in Poland from April 1945 until December 1991. Folks-shtime (Voice of the People) was the main newspaper of Polish Jews after World War II. It began in Lódz and from October 1949 it came out in Warsaw. Until 8 December 1956 it was published under the auspices of the Polish United Workers Party. Thereafter it became the organ of the Social and Cultural Association of Jews in Poland. In its last period, from 1989 to 1991, the Ministry of Culture and Art financed its publication. Beginning in 1969, the newspaper added a section in Polish. From 1950 to 1968 Folks-shtime appeared four times a week; from 1968 to 1991 it was issued weekly. In Yiddish, it used standard rather than Soviet orthography. ” (Yivo Encyclopedia). In 1968, Moshe Sklar moved to the United States, settling later in Los Angeles, and for twenty years was the editor of the Yiddish literary journal Heshbon.

He is a journalist, but first and foremost a Yiddish poet. Working in textiles after graduating from a Jewish folk school, he took courses in literature and psychology. During the Second World War, he worked in the steel mills of the Russian Ural mountains. In 1946, after returning to Poland, he began his career as a journalist for Jewish newspapers, first in the daily Dos naye lebn {New Life) and later in the Folks-Shtime (The People’s Voice) where for many years he held the post of editorial secretary.